This Message Center is organized and operated by David Vitale Boomlets making college admissions more competitive. By Peg Tyre - Newsweek

When high-school senior Maxine Wally got rejected from Northwestern University last month, she lay down on her mother's bed and cried. She thought she had a good shot. Wally consistently took the toughest classes she could fit into her schedule, and her grade point average puts her near the top of the class at her well-regarded public high school in Berkeley, Calif. After months of researching Northwestern on the Web and grilling friends, teachers and advisers who had gone there, Maxine pinned her hopes on getting accepted. "I've been trying to tell her—gently—that getting into college can be very competitive," said Maxine's mom Wendy. But young people, sighed Wendy, "want to follow their dreams."

For students like Maxine who are applying to college for next fall, that dream is turning out to be frustratingly unobtainable. It turns out the odds of getting into a selective college have never been worse. Why?

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posted May 2, 2008 | comments « back to Message Center home

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